


Illicit Kitten Activities

by Shinkei_Shinto



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 17:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17854469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinkei_Shinto/pseuds/Shinkei_Shinto
Summary: The honorable, rule-abiding Pharah finds a kitten on the street after a mission.Angela cannot stop her, despite her best attempts.Shenanigans ensue.





	Illicit Kitten Activities

“Sweet, tiny thing, hey,” her voice is soft, softer than Angela has ever heard before - even in bed - and it is this truth that shocks her. Not Fareeha curled over on the ground, her flight armor awkwardly bunched and sticking out here and there, her legs at awkward angles, because she’s seen that before. Even battle scarred and wounded, she’d take the time to crash when the mission was over, when the threat was eliminated, when they were done.

There were always moments between the end and the pickup. Hell, Angela was even used to seeing Fareeha pull bags of dog treats out of secret compartments that she was absolutely sure should not be used for that purpose, making friends with strays and curs, animals that looked nearly as beaten up as she did most of the time. She would pet them, sit with their heads in her lap, come back with some extra grime and the occasional flea (nanobots, as it turns out, are  _ excellent _ at cleaning fleas off of someone’s body) and usually a wildly improved mood.

This was different, because somehow - instead of the local dogs - Fareeha had managed to find a kitten. At least, that’s what Angela thought that it was, probably, the small scrap of something that looked like multicolored fur and grime, with several legs sticking out, and one ear pointing up out of its head. Fareeha was petting it, her hand covering the entire length of its body with each “stroke”, more like a pat, and Angela could only imagine the dirt that was coming off on the hard edges of her armored hand.

“See? She’s got blue eyes, just like you, Angie,” Fareeha said, in the softest voice, and while Angela’s heart melted at the sound of her nickname in that tone, she took a half step away and clutched to her Caduceus a little bit more tightly.

“I can’t see  _ anything _ on that thing, it’s just a ball of grime with a couple of … animal-like-features.” Angela tried to keep from feeling anything for the animal. She had had a cat, once, more like a friend that stopped by, while she was in university. A beautiful, cream-orange tom, who laid on her books and stole the cheese off of her sandwiches. She liked  _ that _ cat, crisp and well-groomed and very soft when she fell asleep with her head on his side that one time.  _ This _ cat was tiny, scrawny, and frankly, a little bit gross.

“Sweetest kitten… Hi…” Fareeha croons, and the cat-shaped-smear rubs against her hand harder. Angela pauses, and thinks that perhaps this animal is a  _ lot _ bit gross. Fortunately for her, Athena chimes into her halo at just that moment, informing them that transport is a few hundred meters away, and she and Pharah should prepare themselves for pickup shortly.

“Thank you, Athena,” Angela murmurs, pulling her hand away from the halo comm-link button to finish her statement out loud: “time to go, Pharah, time to leave your new friend here!”

In retrospect, she should not have presented that as an option.

In retrospect, she should have done  _ several _ things differently.

Because until that moment Fareeha Amari had not considered the fact that  _ this _ animal was rather small, skinny, and pliant, and she had quite a lot of space in her suit. Until this moment, she had not considered the idea that perhaps, if she were to just adjust things a little bit, she could bring some contraband home.

“What..  _ are _ you doing?” Angela asks, with some concern, when Fareeha starts emptying a compartment in her chest of treats and a couple of somewhat important looking parts. The grimy thing on the ground in front of her has walked closer, putting two whole legs on Fareeha’s knees, although Angela still can’t tell how many other legs are involved in keeping it standing.

“Don’t worry about it.” Fareeha says, matter-of-factly, and Angela sighs, raising her gaze to the sky and summoning the endless patience she usually expends on patients. There’s a weird noise that Angela will later regret not investigating, and then Fareeha stands up abruptly, brushing her hands off on the legs of her armor - a useless gesture here, since everything is metal and just kind of scrapes across, but Angela understands. “Ready!”

There’s more than enough space in the transport, and after a few minutes Angela finds herself slouching, sliding down in the seat. Usually, Fareeha would sling her arm around her, pulling her to her side, but this time she hasn’t even taken off the helmet or chest piece, which until this moment hadn’t bothered Angela, but she wants to lean on Fareeha, and that piece makes it rather difficult. And uncomfortable.

She’s tired enough that she tries anyways, wedging herself into her girlfriend’s side until she finds something that’s almost tolerable, and then Angela closes her eyes and hums with moderate contentment.

“Ree-owwrr..” Angela pauses, trying to figure out what exactly she just heard. She waits a few moments, deciding that the sounds of that suit while still on Fareeha were strange enough, and closes her eyes again.

“Oooowwrrrr..” The second time, she knows. She  _ knows _ . Angela heaves a giant sigh and sits up, turning to stare at the woman sitting next to her like she’s a small child.

“You did not.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Angie.” Fareeha isn’t looking at her, in fact, hiding underneath her helmet, pretending to take a nap, but Angela long knows her tricks by now.

“You. Did. Not.” Angela starts, pauses, takes a deep breath, screwing her eyes shut, and then starts again, under her breath this time: “you did not take that  _ thing _ with us.”

“Angela,” Fareeha is smiling. She can see her smiling, beyond the visor, and she knows. “You know I would never,  _ ever _ , disobey the mandates of our delightful ru-” “ _ Fareeha. _ ” “-ommander Morrison.”

The esteemed, degreed, well educated and manicured Doctor groans. It is not a quiet groan. She slouches back into the seat, sliding down until her posture  _ looks _ about as uncomfortable as having a kitten stuffed into the front part of a suit of rocket powered armor  _ feels _ .

-

“You’re going to get caught with that  _ thing _ before you even get back to your quarters.” It was unusual for Fareeha to wander the corridors of Overwatch HQ in her full armor, but it wasn’t so much so that anyone stopped her, or asked anything of her. Maybe a side eye here or there. Angela trailed behind her in a couple of remnants of her Valkyrie suit, everything but the skin-tight under armor stripped and left behind many rooms ago.

“I am not.” Fareeha Amari is stubborn. She is more stubborn than Angela has the stamina for, she learned long ago, and so she doesn’t start the argument. She could. She doesn’t. “And if I do, I’m blaming you.”

“Wh-” Angela is cut off by a passerby, who waves at her shrinking behind the bulk of Fareeha’s armor, and she has to choke the words in her throat and slap a smile on her face, waving timidly back, until they’re out of view again. “Fareeha Amari I will turn you in  _ myself _ before that happens,” she spits it out in one long breath, almost like it’s one single word, full of venom.

“Fortunately,” Fareeha remarks, turning on her heel, “neither of those things are going to happen,” she raises a hand and waves it past the panel on the wall, and her door unlocks with a cheery sound that only sours Angela’s face further. Shockingly, there hasn’t been any further noise from within the confines of her armor this entire time, and when she bypasses the bedroom to the right and makes straight for the common space, shedding armor bits as she goes.

“Fareeha we are not done talking about this.” Angela snaps, knowing that there won’t be anything resembling a response. She can see the outline of her girlfriend against the lights of the common space in these quarters, digging around in the chest piece for the small scrap of apparently sleeping fur that, supposedly, contained a kitten. Angela was still not convinced, even as she stalked after her, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorway.

Fareeha croons at the tiny beast, waking it up, and wiggles her way out of her gauntlets and then the chest piece, cradling it against her under armor suit, which makes Angela cringe. Already covered in sweat and blood, she didn’t really want to be anywhere near it when it was also covered in  _ kitten grime _ . And as it was still on her, that meant she didn’t want to be anywhere near her  _ girlfriend _ , which was a real tragedy.

“Please wash that thing off.” Fareeha pauses at this statement, thinking about it, then turns to Angela.

“Exactly how do you expect me to introduce a  _ cat _ to  _ water _ ?” She asks, smugly, and Angela sputters and fumes.

“I don’t  _ know _ how, it isn’t  _ my _ problem, but if you want to sleep in a bed and not on the couch we’re going to have to come to some kind of agreement here because that thing is not coming anywhere  _ near _ me right now.” It’s Fareeha’s turn to frown, eyebrows drawing her face into shadow.

An agreement is eventually reached, and while Angela takes the absolutely soiled undergarments away to be sanitized and washed courtesy of Athena, Fareeha works with warm washcloths and whatever else she can find to turn the cat-shaped-spot into a cat-shaped-cat, which makes it Not Angela’s Problem.

She’s very pleased with this arrangement. However, the chaos she comes back to is  _ far _ less pleasing, and she stands in the common room with her arms crossed, furious. In her short absence, Fareeha has absolutely destroyed the part of the room that serves as a kitchen, covering every surface with rags and grime and fur and she didn’t want to  _ think _ about what else. The small monster had then taken a trip around the room, it seemed, spraying every available surface with the dampness that had replaced the dirt, clawing its way up the back of a couch and leaving a small pile of stuffing on the floor below, skittering across the room to  _ somehow _ uproot, chew up, and puke back up a piece of the house plant that Angela had fondly named “Howard”, and finally, was standing just to the side of a sweater of hers that she had left on the floor last night, with a suspicious stain spreading across the back.

“Fareeha. That better not be what I think that is.” She starts, or tries to, but the tall woman is not listening to her, instead chasing after the slightly more feline-shaped animal with another towel. This one at least seems to be more dry, and Angela pinches the bridge of her nose and breathes as deeply as she can, until Fareeha says something else.

“I’m gonna call her Angel.” Angela looks up, dead-eyed, towards her, to find that she is making an attempt to crush the beast to her chest, wrapped inside the towel, wiggling as it tries to escape once more.

Angela doesn’t have words. Really, she doesn’t. At a complete loss, she throws her hands up and turns on her heel, spinning in an almost perfect 180 back towards the exit and the door to the bedroom and upon reaching it, makes the attempt to slam it. Athena does not allow doors to slam, and closes the last inch softly.

Angela plants her face in a pillow and tries not to scream.

-

There’s a quiet knock on the door, which opens silently, because she didn’t ask Athena to lock it. Angela refrains from groaning again. She’s almost in a neutral mood again. Slowly, she rolls her head from the face-down position she has occupied for the last hour, and glares in the general direction of the door.

“Doc?” There’s a very soft voice, and slowly Angela’s eyes focus on the slightly darker facial hair framing the young Jesse’s face in the doorway. The room is dark, his face is dark, whatever he’s wearing is dark, and she’s not really in the mood.

“Whatdoyouwant.” She barely expends a single breath to get the question out, with absolutely no inflection or spacing in the words. Jesse hesitates, holding onto the door frame like it’s going to save him from something.

“I was, uh, lookin’ for Far’a?” He’s so quiet she can barely hear him, staring him down rather intently, and she throws one arm up, stiff but somehow still limp, to point further into her quarters.

“She’s in the common room. With the devil.” Jesse pauses, opening his mouth as if to ask for clarification, because that phrasing probably means something incredibly different to him than it really does, but Angela is not interested in explaining the situation any further, drops her hand to the bed, and rolls her face back into the pillow.

For some reason, probably because the world somehow does not think she has suffered enough through medical school, she can still overhear their conversation. Through the walls. Endless suffering.

“Hey Far- what is  _ that _ .” Jesse stops speaking in the middle of her name, his voice stuttering and getting really, really quiet.

“I found  _ her _ on my last mission. And  _ she’s _ named  _ Angel _ .” Fareeha sounds defensive. Angela can almost see her, sitting somewhere, curled halfway over the monster, looking at Jesse with all the suspicion in the world. Maybe he’d tell Reyes.

“Is it a - is  _ she _ a … cat?” Jesse is still quiet, and Angela’s hope almost grows, barely, springing up in her chest. Maybe he doesn’t  _ like _ cats. Maybe he’ll turn her in. Maybe she will be free of this disaster before it continues any further for any longer. Maybe the thing will sprout wings and fly away.

“ _ She _ is a kitten and she’s serverely malnourished which is why she’s so small and I love her.” So defensive. “You may touch her. She doesn’t bite.” Angela very much doubts that, and Jesse’s hiss of pain - audible even through the wall - is extremely satisfying. “She does however have claws.” Angela expects the worst, waits to hear him tell her how this is going to go, waits to hear the sense. Jesse might have started out in a gang, but he grew up and grew up under Gabriel Reyes, and he has some sense in his head now, so she hopes.

His response is actually too quiet to hear, and Fareeha gasps in response. Angela grins, despite herself, ready for the sounds of arguing and disappointment to emerge, but she is absolutely shocked by what instead happens:

“I’ve got a can o’tuna in my room.”

Angela could scream.

There’s a pillow.

She does.

-

Angela has devised a plan. She is going to get this tiny terror reported to Morrison one way or another, and she is not going to implicate herself in the process. Fareeha has managed to persuade everyone over to her side of the argument, so far, the little demon bringing everyone into her tiny, capable paws.

It turned out to be rather beautiful, a dark tabby calico creature with splashes of fiery color here and there, an almost cream orange that mesmerized others and has yet to capture Angela under the spell. Her eyes, true to Fareeha’s word, are a brilliant blue, near as bright as the sky, and that too has brought even Lena under the little devil’s spell.

Angela refuses to call the cat by her given name.

Her plan now, so far, is to bring the most reasonable of her friends on the base into the room, and let them convince Fareeha that this has gone on long enough, that there has to be some end to this, that she can’t avoid the consequences of her own actions forever. It is  _ going  _ to blow up in her face and she will not wait any longer than absolutely necessary, because the longer she waits the more attached Fareeha grows and she doesn’t need that.

Therefore: Winston.

The scientist was one of the most firm, logical-minded, and reasonable of the set of them, and Angela hoped beyond hope that she might get him to convince Fareeha that it was time for this fun little adventure to be over. And then maybe she could move her clothes back into Fareeha’s quarters without worrying about them being destroyed. Anything to stop that.

She’d started the conversation with a question about research she had been doing, something simple delivered through Athena, but with enough unknowns to catch his attention. She wasn’t quite lying, because she was in fact digitizing research notes, and there was in fact an interesting problem that she could use help solving, but her secondary motivations were also rather clear. Remove the kitten from her life.

She didn’t have anything against cats, really. She didn’t even have anything against breaking rules - especially not  _ Commander _ Morrisons’ rather strict ruleset - but she did have something against this particular kitten, which kept peeing on her shirts. And eating her plants. The kitten had to go.

Winston arrived at the door cheerily, adjusting his glasses, and making his best form of a smile at her. She could hear Fareeha, Lena, and Jesse behind her, in the common area, playing with the monster. She was almost giddy. There was some small talk - there always is, especially with him - and he had just gotten around to asking after her conundrum, when someone in the room behind them shouted.

“Hmm?” He looked over her shoulder, rather easy for him to do with his height advantage, peering down the hall. “What’s going on there?”

“Why don’t you go find out.” Angela was struggling between keeping her voice flat and letting her excitement show, and it was only his curiosity that had Winston bypassing her and not demanding an explanation of some kind. She knew him very well, and shrunk back into the doorway of the bedroom to let him pass, nearly bouncing on the balls of her feet to follow him through to the far room.

To Angela’s undying unsurprise, Lena had the kitten on her head. How it had gotten there, she didn’t know, nor did she want to, as she peeked around Winston’s bulk at the scene unfolding in front of the two of them. Jesse was sitting on the floor with her, his phone held in front of him to take picture after picture (which were quietly, illicitly shared between the chosen few who had been won over to the side of the illegal kitten) while Fareeha was sitting on the couch, which was looking very worn beneath her, observing the whole thing. At Winston’s quiet “um,” everything stopped.

Lena managed to look not only shocked, but guilty  _ and _ sheepish at the same time, which seemed very difficult to Angela, but who was she to judge, as she wasn’t currently holding a very startled contraband kitten in her arms. Jesse, for his part, slowly put his phone down and tried very hard to look like he wasn’t part of this whole thing, as if he could disappear.

Angela was sure he could not.

Fareeha, for her part, leaned forward, as if to explain, trying very hard to come up with something that might convince him to let this continue in the short space of the few seconds that this problem had presented itself to her, and she wasn’t the best in the world at coming up with justifications for illegal activity.

She was  _ usually _ honorable.

“What… is that.” Winston asked, cautiously, taking a couple of steps into the room, regarding the very obviously a kitten through one lens of his glasses.

“Well, uh, that, uh,  _ she _ , is… a kitten…” Fareeha was struggling. What possible justification could she have for this. What could she say to make him go against his rather straightforward and honest nature?

Lena, however, scooted towards him, juggling the small cat in her arms until she managed to get both hands under her armpits, hoisting it up between them. The cat’s back feet and tail dangled haplessly in the air, flicking back and forth slowly as Lena wiggled the cat by sheer virtue of holding it aloft. Each paw was tipped in bright purple caps, its claws having been semi-permanently sheathed in silicone caps to save whatever various objects that it put its terrible little eyes on.

“Her name is Angel?” She tried, still sheepish, shoving the cat upwards at Winston, and to her credit, the kitten let out an endearing little meow, her tiny pink tongue curling in her mouth as she did.

Angela waited, breathlessly, as Winston regarded the little monster. The terrible little creature kneaded the air with her front paws, as if reaching for him, and all Angela could do was wait. Silently. For Winston to make the right decision. For him to say something against this, for him to tell them that they had to remove her from the base. Waited for him to make the call, say the words, that would finally let her free herself of this monster, and return her life back to normal.

Winston reached forward, taking the offered beast in one giant hand, which more than covered her body, and she looked up towards him and gave another happy chirp, and then, as if to spite Angela personally, she started purring. Winston wavered. In all of his time, in all of his thoughts and worries and wonders about the rules and the proper way to do things and the  _ right  _ way to do things, he never considered the difficulties of dear friends of his breaking rules that did not quite need to be there. He never considered how quickly one could pack bond with these illicit creatures, and how difficult it might be to turn someone in once you fell deeply in love with the contraband.

“Hello, little one.” He managed, looking down at the kitten lying happily in his hand, on her back, not a care in the world, fully trusting him not to hurt her. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Angela groaned. Loudly. And her face found her hands before she knew what she was doing and she swore in German under her breath and Fareeha, across the room, started laughing. She knew, somehow, instantly, exactly what Angela had been planning, exactly what she had thought would happen here, and she was now gleefully grinning as her girlfriend’s plan shattered on the floor in front of them.

Within five minutes the gorilla was just as bad as the rest of them, lying on the floor and letting the kitten climb on his shoulders. Lena was taking pictures now. Angela, standing in absolute disbelief and fury, unable to form anything approaching coherent words, finally gave up with a word she hadn’t used in  _ several _ years, since her last exams, and turned around.

She’d find some way to get this kitten out of her life and off of her tops, no matter what it took in the end. Fareeha could not possibly convert every single person on this base to her rule breaking activities, could not possibly make every single person here fall in love with this terrible beast.

_ She _ wouldn’t fall for it, in any case.

-

Angela had retreated to the bedroom while the kitten worshipping was occurring, the one place in Fareeha’s quarters that was still safe from the little devil, to do work. She was going to mull over another plan, but that had led to absolutely nothing for an hour, so eventually she turned back towards the work that she had abandoned in the first place, to attempt her spectacular failure of a plan earlier.

She was still mad about this.

Digitizing research notes was a little more calming than thinking about her failed plans. A little. She was used to it, anyways, it was the kind of mundane calming action that she had done a hundred thousand times before, and with everything that she did around the base, it was a rather regular affair for her.

Of course, it was  _ usually _ done with Fareeha within arms reach, because the soldier was always looking for an excuse to nap on her girlfriend, but this had been happening less and less since the introduction of the monster to their lives, as Fareeha spent time with it instead of her.

Angela feels her eyes narrowing, and stops and takes a breath to stave off the tension headache she can feel starting in her skull. It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. It isn’t like Fareeha hasn’t gone off on other missions without her, meetings or guard things or other events that she was not welcome near. Fareeha, of course, thought it unsafe, but Angela knew she could handle herself and didn’t think nearly so low of her survivability in battle. Or among the elite of the nation. She could deal with a little socializing, but Fareeha didn’t want to subject her to it, and so she had spent many nights in this bed, alone, curled up with something of hers for comfort.

Out of habit, she reached for something now, the bed usually providing some item of clothing that one of them had worn recently, thrown off as they fell towards sleep. To her delight, the world provided something, at least, and she slowly, absentmindedly, ran her fingers across the sweater off to her left, still digitizing things with her right hand. It helped that she didn’t type with the standard keyboard, working instead with one hand at a time, exercising each over time instead of putting stress on both at once.

Of course, this meant that she had to switch hands eventually, but she didn’t want to lose the texture of the sweater that she had come to be enjoying for the past half hour, and to this effect she grabbed at it in an effort to drag it into her lap and across to where she could fist her other hand in it, only to find it not moving despite her efforts.

Confused, she tried a little harder, still concentrating on the complicated sentence that she was writing out from her notes, instead of on the obvious problem that she was having with a mere piece of clothing. This would be a problem in hindsight, but she wasn’t there yet, so close to finishing this document that she waited until the final word had been typed before looking over.

The first thing she saw was not the problem, but Fareeha, standing - leaning - in the doorway, her arms crossed, and the smuggest of all smiles on her face. Angela paused in her thoughts, trying to understand what exactly was going on that would have this expression on her girlfriend, with the door open behind her, the partners in crime long gone. Why would she…?

And then she looks down. Slowly. Following Fareeha’s gaze, all the way onto the bed, and at the hand that was after her clothing - it couldn’t possibly be that. She slept with her clothes all the time, snuggling into a sweater or a jacket, especially when she was left alone in the bedroom. So why was she so smug, just for Angela having been lost in thought and the texture… of… 

The devil. With horror, Angela slowly realized that she had not been tangling her fingers in a sweater, but slowly petting or scratching at the kitten’s back, which was now purring and rolling over under her fingers to let her scratch harder at her chest.

This could not be happening.

“I can explain,” she tried, looking up at Fareeha with the most guilty expression she could find in her soul, wanting desperately to get out of this situation and go back to the life where she didn’t share her bed with any more than one other being, where she had Fareeha all to herself, where she did not have to worry about everything in her life getting destroyed.

Fareeha said nothing.

Hours later, staring narrow-eyed at the demon in her lap, Fareeha snuggled into her shoulder under a blanket and snoring ever so lightly, Angela closed down the digitizing screens in front of her.

“You better grow out of peeing on my thinks, you terrible animal.”

Angel yawned in response, and Angela - despite herself - felt her heart melt a little bit.


End file.
